... edited to remove the possibly negative sense of my original response using the phrase "trick question" ...
Even though I think the question posed here is a "tricky" question that has no clear solution ...
at least not in .NET WinForms, I feel compelled to clarify my earlier comment with the goal of avoiding creating any unnecessary confusion, and, possibly, clearing away a strange cloud of metaphysical smoke that has materialized here, perhaps smoke from an ancient yogi's campfire, a practitioner of Advaita Vedanta's 'neti neti' school, as espoused in the Avadhuta Gita :)
While it is true, as MSDN says: "The user has no control on when the static constructor is executed in the program," you, the programmer, can
force the constructor of a static class to be called.
For example, suppose I create a .NET project of type 'Class Library' which has one static class:
using System;
namespace AStaticClassExperiment
{
public class StaticClass
{
static StaticClass()
{
Console.WriteLine("myField = " + myField);
}
public static string myField { get; set; }
}
}Now I compile this into a DLL. And, then, I create a new .NET WinForm project in which I add a reference to that DLL:
using AStaticClassExperiment;
If, in the code for this new WinForm project, I execute this code:
AStaticClassExperiment.StaticClass.myField = "Hello from the DLL.";
The act of accessing a field of the static class guarantees the static constructor of the class will be invoked, as you can verify by examining the Output Window.
Can a single static class constitute the entire contents of a DLL: yes !
So, when a static class is referenced in a WinForms project, before some part of it is used/referenced: where is it ? what is it ? Well, you might think of it as an 'unused template,' or 'blueprint,' or 'to-do list:' that, once 'picked up' may well trigger a number of behaviors and alter its own internal state.
Hope this is helpful !
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